As we get ready to close the books on 2017, it’s time to look ahead to new ways of working in 2018.

Today, we offer a collection of predictions from visionaries across many different disciplines of Citrix. As the predictions came in, an overarching theme emerged: The concept of how we work is changing dramatically and is largely driven by the move to hybrid cloud, the growth of IoT and AI, and ever-changing security threats.

Though the industry agrees overwhelmingly that the move to the cloud is the necessary next step to enabling flexible, collaborative ways of working, IT adoption of cloud creeped along much more slowly than expected in 2017. IT leaders struggled with non-technical issues, such as the move to SaaS driving spending as OpEx vs. CapEx, securing buy-in from business unit leaders, and more. The drive in 2018 will continue to push this move toward flexible workspaces ahead.In fact, a recent Citrix-commissioned survey proved the industry’s interest in the path to the cloud in 2018:

75% of office professionals believe that in five years, businesses with a flexible work environment will not be competitive without using cloud-based apps

57% of office professionals at companies with a flexible work environment are currently using cloud-based apps

50% of office professionals who do not have a flexible work environment believe that their company would have one if they had the technological capabilities to accommodate it

2 in 5 office professionals would turn down a job opportunity if the company did not have a flexible work environment

1 in 5 employees collaborate virtually, such as through web-based apps and platforms

50% of office professionals who work in flexible work environments note that it has increased productivity

So, while the perspectives of our leaders here at Citrix vary, one commonality holds among them all: the move to the cloud will continue to drive the majority of change in 2018. Read on for predictions on exactly how from our leading thinkers:

PJ HoughSVP, Chief Product Officer at Citrix

​What will be the key technology innovation in 2018? Hybrid cloud. There is a real convergence happening right now across technologies to bring together the best possible work environments using the cloud. Hybrid cloud technology unifies all the applications from all the platforms, whether they happen to be enterprise or on-premise applications, cloud applications or mobile applications and delivers them in a consistent way across any device. Companies no longer need to even own the applications, they just have to subscribe to an application that someone else is delivering. As things move to the cloud, people have a higher expectation that things will just work, that services will always available and will always help them get things done quickly. There’s an expectation that every app is simply going to work, whether they’re on the beach, in a plane, or staying at a hotel. So, as rapidly as technology is innovating to create the future of work with the cloud, there’s a hungry audience who can see that vision and understand that a hybrid model will get them there the fastest.

How do you think technology will change the way people work in 2018 and beyond? It will provide greater mobility. The cloud is giving people the mobility they want in a job today, while giving IT the security controls they need. Work is becoming increasingly more location independent. More people today are succeeding in careers that allow them the freedom to move in time and location, and still contribute greatly to their work. Secure cloud technology will simplify mobility of people moving not just between locations but between projects and allowing them to bring skills from one part of the company to the other.

What tech concept do you think has been widely talked about, but will really see success in 2018? The cloud will continue to be the biggest driver of change in 2018. The challenge that many organizations face today is the pace at which they can absorb and integrate technology. And this is why you see people doing things like move to the cloud or move to an application delivery platform or move to a more open device management policy, because it allows those parts of their business to move at the speed of the cloud, the speed of mobility, the speed of applications — not at their speed. IT teams are well aware that shifting to the cloud is the next big move to make, and I am certain we will see even greater cloud adoption in 2018 than we have this year.

What will be the key technology innovation in 2018?The impact of voice as the next generation human-computer interface will absolutely be a key innovation moving forward in 2018. This will be more impactful than virtual, augmented, or mixed reality. Being able to use voice, combined with machine learning, to interact with complex data will be a huge benefit to everybody.Increasingly, machine learning algorithms allow computers to meet humans halfway to try to figure out what we’re saying or asking just as another person would. If you’ve ever asked a question of Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant, or Samsung Bixby, you’ve experienced the early stages of a profound transformation. It will ultimately mean the end of the keyboard and mouse, making workers in the digital business highly productive.​How do you think technology will change the way people work in 2018 and beyond?Analytics tools are going to allow people to work more productively in 2018. When it comes to user experience, companies need to use powerful analytics tools to ensure that the secure digital workspace provides the end-user with the best possible experience for the device and network they are using.For security, you can think about analytics as a form of artificial intelligence, which builds up a picture of a user’s normal behavior and then looks for anomalies and applies security controls at the point of those transactions. It becomes a look forward using AI to understand what is happening in almost real time, in a way that deals with it in terms of the single user, connection and device. That is incredibly powerful.Hot on the heels of user experience and security analytics will be productivity analytics — this is the key to the contextual delivery of information to help drive productivity. Imagine a scenario where AI helps contextualize what it is you do every day and from where — then surfaces that information inside your secure digital workspace, so you spend less time looking for data and more time acting on the information.

What tech concept do you think has been widely talked about, but will really see success in 2018?Hybrid Cloud. The puritan debate around public cloud vs. private cloud has raged for almost a decade, yet the smart money says that the hybrid or multi-cloud model is going to be the most dominant in the foreseeable future. Many of the savviest organizations are systematically figuring out which workloads to leave on premises or move to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) or software-as-a-service (SaaS). The hybrid approach of creating the on-premises versus public cloud and creating networks that are flexible and secure enough to deal with the different types of connectivity. We’re on the way to addressing that, both as an industry and also at Citrix.

Stan BlackChief Security Information Officer, Citrix

What will be the key technology innovation in 2018?Companies need to be careful about adding complexity in 2018. Heavily-regulated companies take more risks to be more competitive. Companies are now more dependent on cloud and application providers that they haven’t vetted with due diligence. These providers may often have sloppy code with fewer protections than they have historically had.Many companies or even industries are trying to accelerate pace of change and forego appropriate security protocols; turning to new tech providers that historically have had less protections or haven’t lived up to strict scrutiny or testing.Bypassing concerns about trust to keep or gain competitive advantage – “there’s an app for that” mentality.

How do you think security technology will change the way people work in 2018 and beyond?Consumerization will change the workplace experience. In 2018, trust and shadow IT will continue to be huge issues across industries. If companies and providers can improve the experience, so users don’t have to go around IT-sanctioned technology, we’ll see people working more securely — by choice.

What tech concept do you think has been widely talked about, but will really see success in 2018?The analytics term is getting thrown around a lot, but businesses need to be careful about implementing technologies without a strategy for their use. The goal is to remove complexity, not add another layer. Analytics has the potential to be the next generation of failed filters — analytics technology tells you there is a problem, but doesn’t solve that problem.From a business and a security perspective, there needs to be a strategy for problem solving on top of problem identification. Understanding that distinction will be key for businesses who want to move to a proactive security model and stay ahead of the threat landscape.

Christian BoucherHealthcare Evangelist, Citrix

What will be the key technology innovation in 2018?Cloud is becoming more and more topical within my conversations with healthcare leaders around the globe. CIOs and CTOs are becoming more comfortable with the idea of leveraging cloud-based resources to augment, and in some cases, displace on-premises infrastructure and services. As cloud technology has matured, and taken steps to ensure compliance with HIPAA/GDPR regulations, organizations are examining ways they can leverage the technology.With the rapid pace of OS, core application and infrastructure upgrades organizations are experiencing, keeping the lights on per se is straining IT resources to the breaking point, and execs are looking for ways to leverage their teams in a more productive manner, allowing them to focus on innovating instead of administrating.

How do you think technology will change the way people work in the healthcare industry in 2018 and beyond?I believe key advancements in analytics and AI will play a major role within Healthcare, not just within patient population tools, but also in optimizing workflows both within in-patient and out-patient scenarios. The age of EHR deployments are now pushing organizations to revise, enhance, and develop new processes within the care continuum. AI/ analytics will allow organizations to better understand the patient/caregiver/practitioners needs, and allow them to customize experiences for each of them, allowing for increased productivity, improved care delivery, and enhanced patient experience. These will, essentially, change the way they work, treat patients, and receive care within the healthcare environment.

What tech concept do you think has been widely talked about, but will really see success in 2018?I believe Blockchain can and will play a major role within healthcare. The technology is primed for use cases around patient record portability, a key measure within the HIPAA regulations. The problem standing in the way is consensus. You have governmental requirements, disparate vendor standards and technologies, as well as competing strategies on how it should be constructed. All of this will contribute to this being a long-term development process/transition, albeit an intriguing one.

Steve ShahVice President of Product Management, Networking, Citrix

What will be the key technology innovation in 2018?2018 will be the year of the anti-innovation – the boring cloud technologies that we’ve had for a while are hitting a critical inflection in the maturity curve where our ability to consume them and the cloud’s ability to make them work well are finally coming together. Thus, the hybrid-multi-cloud will become the reality for a lot of enterprises that want to move towards shifting select workloads to where it is cheapest to run while keeping special applications on-premises under the same management framework.

How will technology change the way people work in 2018?As cloud comes to building management systems, the ability to cost effectively leverage IoT to improve the quality of the workplace will become real. We’re learning all kinds of new things about how everything from the quality of the air we breathe inside the office impacts our cognitive function to the way that we run meetings and use conference rooms.

What tech concept do you think has been widely talked about, but will really see success in 2018?Face recognition as a form of biometric identity will become a talking point as initial offerings from consumer technology haven’t worked as well as was hoped. This will lead to a broader discussion around biometrics as a form of identity and which biometrics are acceptable and which are not. This will particularly become a hot topic as the broad availability of fingerprint scanners and cloud APIs from Microsoft and Google have made biometrics as a second-factor in multi-factor authentication the new normal.

​What will be the key technology innovation in 2018?In this age of digital transformation, continuous IT-enabled innovation is essential. Yet many companies overlook the inherent behavioral change to employees that goes along with new technology adoption. In 2018, for companies to make the most of the frequent waves of technology innovation, I believe they will have to commit to designing strong change management principals into their technology adoption plans. For digital transformation to deliver value, an entire organization needs to buy into new ways not just of working, but also of thinking.

How do you think workspace redesign technology will change the way people work in 2018 and beyond?With change as a constant and the need to produce outcomes quickly, the way changes are rolled out to employees is evolving toward a more inclusive approach. A workplace redesign transformation creates many questions for employees: “Where will we keep our stuff,” “How will I find people in an unassigned environment?”, “What about germs?”Rather than a leadership team providing answers to everything, success comes more quickly when employees are invited to help develop the answers. An inclusive approach creates personal change ownership of those answers from the beginning and employees feel change is done ‘by’ us rather than ‘to’ us. It also creates and environment that signals leaders aren’t all-knowing and all-powerful. At its core, workplace redesign brings down the walls, encourages collaboration, and highlights contribution — but you don’t have to wait until the physical space is move-in ready to instill those values. The culture change begins with your change approach.

What tech concept do you think has been widely talked about, but will really see success in 2018?IoT has huge potential for the workplace. Smart companies like Hermann Miller and Steelcase are using a design thinking approach to innovate and truly deliver products that are making the most of the potential for IoT. While I don’t think we’re likely to see these types of innovations at scale in 2018, my hope is that we all take a customer-centric approach and think about how IoT can make us more efficient, more delighted, more effective in our day. By 2019, I think we will really see these innovations take off!

Steve WilsonVice President, Cloud and IoT, Citrix

What do you think will be the key technology innovation in 2018?In the near future, people are going to have a very different set of devices to access work on a daily basis. It was just a few years ago where the only questions people were asked when they showed up to their first day on a new job was whether they wanted a PC or a Mac. Today, people demand to work from the device and location of their choice. There’s also an increasing number of IoT devices, such as the inexpensive Raspberry Pis that cost less than $100 — that can do everything that a PC used to do. For example, with a Raspberry Pi integrated with Citrix technology, an employee can sit down, hook up a keyboard and a mouse with a monitor to it and use it as their computer. They can also use it as an embedded device, hide it under their desk and attach it to speech recognition, voice recognition, virtual reality or augmented reality.

How do you think technology will change the way people work in 2018 and beyond?IoT will move from being seen as a massive security risk in the Enterprise, to a critical part of an Enterprise’s security posture. Concepts, such as Bluetooth beacon technologies, GPS, biometrics, facial recognition, and pervasive analytics on user behavior will give much greater confidence in a user’s identity, which will lead to greater assurance that people are getting access to the right things.

What tech concept do you think has been widely talked about, but will really see success in 2018?Voice/speech shows promise and I feel we’ve reached this inflection point where it’s getting so much better at such a rate that it’s very usable for a set of tasks today. In 2018, we’re going to see it go further as we figure out the applications for it. It’ll be similar to a time, years ago, when people actually preferred DOS because it could do things compactly with a small set of text commands, once we figure out how to talk to something in a natural manner and say, for example, “rename all the files that start with the letter Q,” then that action is automated — that is going to become tremendously powerful. A combination of some of those AI technologies wrapped around voice will be really big. Another example are startups now that now only specialize in building bots, which are not physical robots but chatbots; you can put voice in front of that or type commands or text messages to it. Imagine how transformative it will be when natural language interaction is added in, whether it’s typing or talking!

Trenton CychollVice President, Business Technology Solutions, Citrix

What will be the key technology innovation in 2018?2018 will be a year where security will become part of the fabric in how we work. Contextual access and voice recognition will enable security to be part of the productivity solution and remove barriers that have previously made security a blocker to getting work done. Security technologies will focus on user-centric design and become smarter recognizing identity in more automated methods through machine learning and artificial intelligence.

How do you think technology will change the way people work in 2018 and beyond?Cloud technologies will continue maturation in 2018. Enterprises will gain value from cloud as a delivery platform with edge computing or end-points becoming smarter and more connected. Intelligence and computing power at the end-points will drive cloud leverage as technology becomes more part of how we live and operate. Initially, hybrid delivery and infrastructure in the enterprise will lead to further cloud adoption beyond 2018.

Jeroen van RotterdamSVP, Engineering, Citrix

What will be the key technology innovation in 2018?2018 will be year where we see the death of the password. A wide variety of authentication methods will be introduced that will replace passwords including biometrics , behaviour analytics, and the like. The amount of security breaches will accelerate to record heights which will force companies to abandon traditional passwords as a way to protect accounts

How do you think technology will change the way people work in 2018 and beyond?Machine learning with brute force compute will offer a wide variety of creative solutions that couldn’t be done by humans. Creators will focus on the what, not the how.

What tech concept do you think has been widely talked about, but will really see success in 2018?Hackers will see great successes in 2018 with the way the internet is used. Access to web pages and apps will become much more controlled to protect end users which will limit the viral nature of the web as we know it today. Dark web concepts will be adopted by web apps to limit exposure.

Chalan ArasVice President & General Manager, NetScaler SD-WAN, Citrix

What will be the key technology innovation in 2018?Enterprise workload transformation to cloud will be a key innovation in 2018. Enterprises have been steadily moving their B2C and web properties to the cloud. In 2018, we expect to see the mainstreaming of internal, employee-facing app migrations to the cloud in order to build hybrid deployments. This will drive a new wave of SD-WAN adoption to connect directly from places of business to the cloud.

How do you think technology will change the way people work in 2018 and beyond?Here it is! UCaaS is king; SD-WAN to the rescue.As more communications move to the cloud, enterprises will recognize the need to have a robust network, with end-to-end visibility from the cloud down to the users. This year, we will see SD-WAN and Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) be spoken in the same sentence.

What tech concept do you think has been widely talked about, but will really see success in 2018? SD-WAN = Secure Delivery: Security and enterprise networking have been kept at arm’s length for a long time. It’s about time for this to change. We will start seeing security to be built into the SD-WAN services, with an integrated, perimeter solution that manages robust delivery and security from a single point of control.